Heya ! I was wondering : since in your undertale fics the war seems to take place in Europe (in AmberTale at least, and maybe in EISTale too ?), where do you imagine Mt Ebott to be ? Voilà, random question of the day. Also, I love your work and this blog, I almost always feel like I can relate to what you post. Seriously, you just posted gifs with auroras and I'm giving a presentation about them in two days, it's almost creepy ? Have a super nice week ! ~A random colorful vegetable from Ao3
OK. Here’s what confuses me: Toby Fox is American and a lot of Undertale’s just.. I dunno, aesthetic?, seems to me to be rather American, although it could really be anywhere, and there’s really no way to tell a specific place/time period with any certainty from the intro screens with the spear-waving humans. I set the War between Humans and Monsters in AmberTale in a close fantasy parallel to plague-era Middle Ages, ie right at the end and the beginning of the Renaissance (which was starting already and really got into swing once they got all the corpses cleared out of the way and the land reallotted.) So early 1300s by our dates, and presumably in Europe, since this is European history we’re talking about. Thing is. Where does Undertale actually take place? I think it’s hard to say. When I look at the original game I wanna say America, but I can’t with certainty, and personal preference for aesthetics and stuff makes me want to set it in Europe, by our standards. So I’m gonna go with ‘maybe neither’. Camila Cueves said Glitchtale takes place in a Pangaea-like mega-continent. I’m.. not going to be exactly the same, but similarly, I will say that my stories do not take place in a world that is exactly the same as ours. However, a lot of the places and place names are the same, at least in AmberTale/ChryTale (England and Greece and Normandy exist because they’ve been specifically mentioned in various places.) The Barrier exists in a mountain range roughly analogous to the Alps. Crisco, I have no idea, but it’s not our world. Got sort of a chilly wasteland vibe going there, but hopefully that’s just the doings of the dystopian government and not the state of the rest of the world. Snowflower, different world altogether. They are in a cold place with lots of mountains and sea, and good land with an optimum combination of flat-enough-to-build-on, ocean access, accessibility in general and sunlight (some of the dramatically deep lowlands between mountains get very little sunlight) is at a premium. What’s happening with the war is the Monsters are being forced off both the live-on-able mountains and most of the seashore and into the lowlands, which are not great to live in, but you can survive if you’re Determined. (Sorta like the Underground.) And thus Kip’s joy at being able to experience so many hours of sunlight a day. ..I’m getting alternate-universe quasi-Norway vibes from this one, but the topography would be different obviously, it’d be its own small peninsula.
Thanks man! I’m so glad you enjoy my random weirdness :D Oh, good luck with the presentation! And my week is likely to be rough and very up-and-down because Finals are upon me and my brain has not been giving the best performance lately so that’s concerning, but I’ll pull through, and then I’ll have a whole month of break to write things for you!